Female directors come out top on pay increases

Women
directors received higher salary increases than their male counterparts,
according to the 2002 National Management Salary Survey, launched earlier this
year by the Chartered Management Institute and Remuneration Economics.

The
survey, which compares salaries and total earnings for men and women managers
at all levels, shows average salary increases for female directors of 9.3 per
cent over the last year, against only 5.6 per cent increases for male
directors.

Women
managers also received higher salary increases than their male colleagues,
averaging 6.5 per cent increases against male increases of just 6.1 per cent.

The
study suggests that possible reasons for this disparity could be that stock
market turbulence over the last year has had a knock-on effect on private
sector salaries. With women making up only 2 per cent of FTSE company executive
directors, market uncertainty will have had much less effect on their
salaries.

The
number of women directors has also jumped from one in 10 (9.9 per cent) to one
in seven (14.8 per cent) this year according to the survey, which confirms that
the majority of women directors are employed in public sector or in finance and
business services.